Gene Taylor of Greenville, formerly sheriff of Anderson County, was shot in the leg Saturday night, and he says it happened as he arrived home and was confronted by two robbers outside the Preserve at Woods Lake Apartments on Glen Forest Drive.

The Greenville Police Department released little information about the shooting, and declined to name the victim. Officer Johnathan Bragg said officers responded to a gunshot victim at the Preserve at Woods Lake Apartments around 8:45 p.m. Saturday.

Bragg said the victim told officers that two men tried to rob him, and after a brief struggle he was shot in the leg.

Taylor, who was sheriff of Anderson County from 1988 to 2004, said he returned home from Charlotte, where he had taught a photography class, at 8:30 p.m. He was bending into the trunk of his car to collect two bags of groceries, a projector and a laptop, he said, when a man pushed him from behind.

For an instant, Taylor thought the man was kidding, he said. Then he said it again: “I’ll shoot you. Give me your money,” Taylor said.

Taylor, 59, said he told the man he didn’t have any money, and he repeated the threat a third time.”

“His gun was close enough to me, I grabbed his gun,” Taylor said. “That’s probably for the average citizen not the best thing to do, and the plan didn’t quite work out the way I envisioned it.”

Taylor said he turned the gun toward the robber. Although it was was still in the suspect’s hands, “I had it in his belly,” Taylor said.

That was when the second man got out of a car and hit him on the head, Taylor said.

“I went to my knees,” he said. “I still tried to struggle with him, and I got shot.”

Once more, the robber demanded money, he said. Taylor said he gave them his wallet, and they left.

He said the face of one robber was partially hidden behind a bandana, and the other wore a mask.

The bullet went through the biggest part of his right leg, Taylor said, and did not hit an artery or a bone.

“I am lucky,” he said.

He knocked on some doors, got no response, and finally remembered he had a cell phone, he said. He was feeling light-headed, he said, bleeding and not yet aware that the bullet hadn’t severed an artery.

Taylor said he tried to call 911, failed, and then called the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office. Someone transferred him to 911, he said.

He was taken to the Greenville Memorial Hospital trauma center, he said, and spent the night at the hospital.

Taylor, who worked at WYFF Channel 4 before he was elected sheriff, said that he was never shot when he was in law enforcement, though he was in the line of fire a few times.

“I would like a do-over,” he said. “The average citizen should not ever try what I attempted. They’re much better off to give the money and go. However, my next encounter will have a different outcome. It could be worse, it could be better.”